Portable pagers or receivers for use with radio paging systems are well-known. In a typical system the persons who are to be selectively paged each carry a portable pager and each pager is actuated in response to a unique coded signal--a unique signal is associated with each pager--identified as an "address". To actuate a particular pager, a well-known technique involves the use of telephones. The person who desires to do the paging dials a first number which connects such person by a telephone trunk line to a common carrier company. The common carrier company is connected by a telephone line to a terminal and the carrier company transmits a signal to the proper "address" such as by a unique signal which has a coded tone sequence such as two tones on an RF carrier. When the desired pager receives its unique coded signal, the pager will normally provide an alert tone in the form of a beep or other audible and/or visible indication so that the person carrying the pager is alerted that a voice message will be transmitted to them via their pager.
Such voice pagers represent a considerable improvement over prior art systems which transmit only a beeping tone. In response to the beeping tone, the person carrying the paging device must place a telephone call to an office, answering service, or the like to obtain a message. It has been found, however, that voice message pager systems still present a problem (which problem is common to the systems which transmit only a beeping tone), namely, that such systems require the pager to be carried at all times. This requirement has resulted in a pager being referred to as an "electronic leash".
Another problem encountered with the use of a voice message pager is that if the pager is used in high background noise areas such as factories, stores, at sporting events, etc., the voice message will be partially or completely inaudible.
A related problem encountered with the use of a voice message pager is that the person carrying the pager may be at a location where they do not wish to be interrupted such as during business meetings, during meals, or in certain public places, yet they do want to obtain all their messages.
Still another problem with the use of voice message pagers is that the message may contain information of a confidential business nature which the person carrying the pager does not wish to be overheard by those in the immediate vicinity. That is, although the RF transmitted message may obviously be overheard by anyone monitoring the specific frequency, the message may be meaningful only to the intended recipient and those in the immediate geographic vicinity of the intended recipient.
Voice message pagers normally have a reset mechanism such as a bar or button which must be actuated to clear the pager at the conclusion of the message so that the pager returns to the stand-by mode. A problem with these prior art pagers is that if the reset mechanism is accidentally depressed while a message is being transmitted, that part of the message which has not yet been transmitted will not be received by the pager.
Another problem with prior art paging devices is that they require an operator to manually reset the pager so that the pager converts to a stand-by mode to receive the next message. If the pager is not reset, the pager will continue in a "play" mode, thus draining the batteries.
Thus, the present invention relates to an improved paging system of the voice message radio transmitted type which provides a new approach to the reception of voice messages.